The Delhi High Court has held unconstitutional a colonial-era law that provides: “Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal, shall be punished with imprisonment for life, or with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable […]
Author Archive | Dale Carpenter
Reversing DADT is “urgent” and “essential to our national security” because the policy “weakens” our military, expels “patriotic Americans” with “critical language skills,” and wastes years of training — all in “a time of war”:
That’s what President Obama has concluded. Here’s the transcript of the president’s remarks at the White House today. To deal with this grave and urgent threat to national security, the Commander-in-Chief announced that he will immediately: (1) Suspend enforcement of DADT in its entirety for the duration of the war, claiming ample constitutional and statutory […]
Domestic partnerships in Wisconsin:
Today the governor signed a biennial budget bill that includes limited but important protections and rights for registered same-sex domestic partners. Wisconsin is the first state in the Midwest to grant recognition to gay families by legislative action. Iowa has marriage by state supreme court decision. So far, there’s no recognition or legal protection for […]
Better late than never:
On the eve of gay pride weekend, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has apologized to veteran activist Frank Kameny for firing him in 1957 solely because of his homosexuality. The letter, from the director of OPM, says in full: Dear Dr. Kameny: In what we know today was a shameful action, the United States […]
Some caution about Census data on same-sex couples:
Yesterday I posted some results from a new Census study comparing married same-sex couples and married opposite-sex couples, and comparing both to unmarried same-sex couples. The study concluded that in many significant ways — including likelihood to be raising children, income, home ownership, education, and race — gay and straight married couples were very similar, […]
New Census study comparing gay and straight married couples:
Gay and straight married couples are demographically very similar in terms of likelihood to be raising children, age, income, race, whether they own or rent a home together, education levels, and employment. And both are unlike unmarried same-sex partners (and, I suspect, unmarried straight couples), who skew younger, more educated, more wealthy, are much less […]
The least he could do:
In a brief and perfunctory prepared statement, read carefully from a script, President Obama just signed an order a presidential memorandum directing federal departments to grant some benefits to employees’ same-sex partners requesting federal departments to review over the next 90 days whether they can grant some benefits to employees’ same-sex partners under federal law. […]
Suspicious Patterns in the Iranian Election Results.
In examining the provincial breakdown of the Iranian election results, I noticed some strange things. First, while Mousavi was leading Ahmadinejad by 2 to 1 in Tehran in a poll last week, Ahmadinejad won Tehran 52% to 46% in the reported election results. In an authoritarian state, one would expect polling to understate the popularity […]
Obama Delivers on Promise in Cairo Speech: “we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election.”
So far, the response of the Obama Administration to the Iranian election must be a disappointment to all those who desire freedom for oppressed people around the world. The response has been compared to that of George H.W. Bush to the events preceding the fall of the Berlin Wall, which initially was similarly “flat-footed.” (tip […]
Fierce advocacy:
Continuity continues. The Obama Justice Department yesterday filed a brief urging a California district court to dismiss a little-known constitutional challenge to DOMA filed in late 2008 by a married gay couple. (No, it’s not the Olson/Boies challenge to Prop 8.) The brief makes some unexceptional jurisdictional arguments about standing and immunity. For lots of […]
Gay marriage in New Hampshire:
Today the state legislature passed, and the governor quickly signed, a same-sex marriage bill. (It becomes effective January 1.) Six states now permit the marriages of gay couples under state law. Three of those have done so by legislative action. Congratulations to New Hampshire Freedom to Marry, which lobbied for the bill, and to gay […]
Broad domestic partnerships in Nevada:
The state legislature overrode the Governor’s veto. The vote was 28-14 in the state assembly, and 14-7 in the state senate, exactly the amounts needed in each house. The governor had argued that a 2002 state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage precluded the partnership bill. While I haven’t seen the text of the Nevada bill, […]
Guns in Parks: The Hoplophobes
Into today’s issue of The New Ledger, I analyze some of the reader comments from last week’s reader comments to a collection of pro/con essays in the on-line New York Times, regarding guns in National Parks.
Does Biden help Obama? Lefts Says Yes; Right Says No:
This week’s National Journal poll of political bloggers asked: “What is Vice President Biden’s impact on the Obama administration?” Of Left-leaning bloggers, 81% said that he is helping “a lot” or “a little.” On the Right, nobody thought he was helping a lot, and 23% thought he was helping a little. Fifty-four percent said “Hurts […]
Does the Convention Against Torture apply to abortion?
The Convention Against Torture defines torture as: any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected […]